A fortnight ago, a search was conducted in Roqueredonde, within the walls of the Buddhist temple.

The gendarmes heard several people and seized accounting and notarized documents.

They also found in a chest of the community, a large sum of money in cash, several tens of thousands of euros, apparently justified in the accounts of the center.

Banknotes in euros and dollars, also for several tens of thousands of euros, as well as gold, were also found in a temple accommodation. All the cash has been entered.

Rumors and testimonies, without complaint For several years, the Buddhist center of Roqueredonde faces rumors and testimonies concerning alleged physical and / or mental violence, even rape, on former members of the Lerab ling community.

Sogyal Rinpoche, the founding Lama of the Herault center, is specifically accused of physical and sexual assault by former followers. To date, a gendarmerie investigation carried out in 2016-2017 over a year, has collected information and testimonies from the 90s on this case. However, no official complaint has been lodged either against Sogyal Rinpoche or against the temple.

The investigation file is on the office of the Prosecutor of the Republic of Montpellier, since February 2018. Does this search augur for judicial action or not against the temple? Will there be additional auditions? So many questions that remain unresolved for the moment.

The founder of the Lodève center has been removed from the management of the site. He left the temple for about a year and is living in Thailand, where he would be treated for cancer.

Tibetan lamas have been stockpiling cash and gold for decades. In 2011, Indian police raided Gyuto Tantric Monastic University, in Dharamsala, where Orgyen Trinley Dorje (one of the 17th Karmapa) resided.

On January 28th, 2011, the 17th Karmapa (Orgyen Trinley Dorje) was arrested by the Indian government, after a raid on his residence near Dharamsala found trunks filled with foreign currency. More than one million dollars was seized from the 17th Karmapa by the Indian government, along with all of his computers and paperwork. The raid was ordered because one of the Karmapa’s assistants had been arrested with a large sum of money on his way to buy land for building a home and monastery for the Karmapa. This case is wending its way through the Indian courts, and the charges of fraud and money-laundering against the Karmapa, thrown out in 2012, were reinstated in 2014.

Tibetans are not allowed to purchase land in India, and having large sums of money, undeclared to the Indian government, is illegal also.